


The Feeling of Something More

by TheButterflySings



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 08:31:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7307716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheButterflySings/pseuds/TheButterflySings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He fights well with the team, always fought well with Steve. But there was doubt, and everyone knew it, knew that Bucky just couldn't trust himself. Not after had almost killed them all, Steve included. He wasn't Hydra's soldier anymore, but he was still the Winter Soldier, and in Bucky's mind, those two things were mutually inclusive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Feeling of Something More

He'd never thought joining the Avengers would be a thing, even an option. Not while he had that arm and that mark of Hydra permanently on his body. Stark didn't like him and neither did Sam, and maybe the rest did, but maybe they were just saying they did for Steve's sake. Because Steve was friends with everyone. And he was the one who'd managed to talk Bucky into staying with the Avengers and fighting with them because he was sure Bucky would be good with the team. Bucky didn't know, didn't trust himself, didn't trust the metal arm, just didn't know enough about his own brain anymore to trust any part of it.

Even after a year with the Avengers, it went the same. Sure, he fought right beside them, at Steve's right hand, with Natasha and Clint and Stark and the whole group by their sides. And it worked-- Bucky couldn't deny that. He fights well with the team, always fought well with Steve. But there was doubt, and everyone knew it, knew that Bucky just couldn't trust himself. Not after had almost killed them all, Steve included. He wasn't Hydra's soldier anymore, but he was still the Winter Soldier, and in Bucky's mind, those two things were mutually inclusive.

The first person who said anything about it was Bruce Banner, which made sense when Bucky thought about it objectively. Bucky was watching TV but not really watching, because Steve was talking to Tony about something, and he was trying to figure out what it was without making it seem too obvious. He didn't get how some of these stupid shows became popular anyway. Modern entertainment was still something confusing. And then Bruce sat down with him. 

"You're really not so different than any of us," he told Bucky plaintively, watching Bucky with something unreadable in his eyes. Instead of answering, Bucky gave his metal arm a pointed look. Bruce's lips twitched into a half-smirk. "Yes, the arm, I know. The arm, the power you posses. You are dangerous. You are strong, you are powerful, you are deadly. You're a soldier. But you were all of those things without the arm, and your friend is all of those things as well. Everyone here is all of those things. We all maintain an ability to kill, we've all done damage, we all have wrongs to right."

"You guys control it," Bucky pointed out coolly. Bruce was right, they did all have deadly abilities, but it wasn't the deadly ability Bucky was worried about. Yes, he was just as capable of killing a person without the use of the arm, but he wasn't always sure if he could control the metal arm. He wasn't always sure if his brain, his actions, were his own.

"Do we?" Bruce responded with a faint little grin. "Wanda is terrified of her own power, the way you fear that arm. And I know better than anyone what it's like to feel like something else is taking over your mind. Something stronger and deadlier waiting to get out. But they trust me, and they love me." Bruce motioned to the others around the room. "And they love you, too. Former Hydra operative or not." He patted Bucky's arm, the real one, lightly, and stood up to walk away. Bucky watched him with a vacant expression, not willing to admit that he had a point.

The second person was Clint.

He and Natasha had been training-- which really entailed, from all Bucky could see, Natasha kicking Clint's ass over and over again-- and Bucky had been watching, amused. Natasha was a deadly little dame. He wondered how well she could hold her own against him-- how well he would have held his own against her before the experiments and the arm.

Clint grinned cheekily when he saw Bucky lingering, walking over to him. "Having fun?"

"She can kick your ass five ways from Sunday," Bucky pointed out.

"Ten," Natasha corrected. "And I can kill you without getting caught in fifty ways. Keep that in mind." She smirked and exited the room, leaving Clint and Bucky alone. 

"You're still blaming yourself for what you did as the Winter Soldier," Clint stated clearly, and it wasn't a question, so Bucky didn't answer. But he didn't have to, because Clint looked like he knew what Bucky was thinking. "You shouldn't, you weren't in control."

"I killed a lot of people."

"Hydra killed a lot of people," Clint replied. "They used you as a weapon to do it. Yeah, you're a super-soldier, and you were used for terrible things. It could've been Steve, but look at him. You just had the bad deal. From what I heard from Steve, you were a damn good soldier, a damn good person before Hydra got their teeth into you. You are not your past."

Bucky sighed. He wondered, in the back of his mind, if maybe Steve had put them up to this. It seemed like something Steve would do to make Bucky trust himself again, but Bucky-- things had changed, he had changed. And maybe he'd been a great soldier in 1945, but 1945 was seventy years ago. Even if Bucky hadn't been awake for part of those seventy years, he had changed, too. He was a lot more than just an American soldier defending his country. He was a weapon, lethal and deadly, always on the verge of tipping onto the wrong side of things.

"Steve tell you to tell me that?" Bucky finally asked, attempting to make the question a joke.

"No. Look, we've all done things, me, Natasha,Tony, Bruce, that we aren't proud of. Things happened, and you aren't James Barnes from Brooklyn anymore. But that guy, in there, he's not Steve Rogers from Brooklyn anymore, either. And there's no way I'm the same Clinton Barton from Waverly, Iowa. Bad things happen, Bucky. It's what you do in the aftermath that determines who you are. And in the aftermath, you're here, with us. And trust me when I say we all love having you here."

Giving Bucky a nod, Clint followed Natasha out of the room. Bucky exhaled through his nose. Damn heroes were just too optimistic for his taste.

The third person was Natasha, but she wasn't quite so kind about it, which, in the end, Bucky was pretty thankful for. She came to find him when he was trying to sleep and let herself into his room without so much as a knock.

"What if I'd been naked?" Bucky deadpanned, looking up at her.

"I'd have called Steve," she deadpanned right back. "You gotta get over yourself, Bucky."

"What does that mean, doll?"

"One, don't call me that or I'll rip your other arm off and have Tony replace it with a metal one, too. Two, accept that you're part of this team and we all love you. The Winter Soldier, Hydra, the Nazi party, whatever, Bucky. You were that then, you're an Avenger now. So suck it up and accept that. And accept that everyone here is fully capable of keeping you in check if somehow you do lose control again."

"I'm a risk," Bucky reminded her carefully, crossing his arms under his head and staring at the ceiling. 

"And I'm an assassin. Words are words. Actions are actions. Stop talking and make your actions count." 

She was gone before Bucky could respond.

The last person to approach Bucky about it was Steve, and that didn't surprise Bucky at all. In fact, he'd expected it. He didn't even really let Steve approach him. He went to Steve and joined him where he was laying on his bed, sitting on the edge of it beside him.

"You been tellin' everyone to come give me pep talks, Stevie?" 

"I haven't told anyone to do anything," Steve responded, shifting onto his side to look at Bucky. "You believe what they're telling you, Buck?"

"Should I?"

Steve sat up then, taking the metal fingers of Bucky's hand into his own. He ran his fingers along the metal, and Bucky watched him, wishing he could feel it, feel the heat under his skin when Steve touched him. "You know what I think when I see this, Buck? I don't think of Hydra, I don't think of the Winter Soldier, I don't think of what you've done with this arm. I think of you, and I think of what you've gone through, and I think of how much you suffered, and I think of Bucky Barnes from Brooklyn, New York, 1945, gettin' into fights to keep me safe. It's just part of you, Bucky, and you're you again, and I trust you, and now they do, too."

Bucky's chest tightened at the words. He loved Steve Rogers, he did, and these were the reasons why. Even if he couldn't profess it, even if he hated that he felt it. Not because he had anything against the feeling itself-- though he hadn't really been the relationship type as much as he'd been the kind to jump into bed with any pretty lady that tickled his fancy at the given time. He hated loving Steve because he knew Steve deserved better, better than a killer, better than Hydra's chew toy, better than the weapon he'd become. He didn't trust himself with Steve, didn't trust what he could become, what was just there beneath the surface. He didn't think it possible that Steve could love him the same way, hold him in the same light.

"I don't trust me, Steve," Bucky finally mumbled, the confession tearing out of him and leaving something dark and painful in its' wake.

"I know you don't, Buck, but that's why you've got me. To you, you're... You're James Barnes, the Winter Soldier. But you know what you are to me? What you've always been to me? Just Bucky. My best friend, the only person I've had. And you don't trust yourself anymore because they made you forget that, but even if you forget what you were to me a thousand times, I'll always be here to remind you, Bucky. I'm never gonna forget how I felt about you in Brooklyn. How I felt about you when I saw you again in the war. How I felt about you when I found out you were still alive, and how I feel about you right now. I love you, Bucky Barnes, and I'm with you."

"Till the end of the line," Bucky whispered, voice cracking, and Steve smiled. Brokenly, Bucky smiled back.

"Till the end of the line," Steve echoed, and he leaned in, kissing Bucky deeply. Bucky kissed back, meeting passion for passion and love for love, and maybe, just maybe, if Steve could find it in his heart to love even the deepest, darkest, most broken parts of Bucky, then Bucky could find it in him to love them, too. He didn't deserve the Avengers, and he sure as day didn't deserve Steve Rogers. But somehow, he had Steve, and Steve loved him, and Hydra, and the Winter Soldier aside, for just plain Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers would always be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> First Stucky fic I've written. I don't know if I characterized them right at all. Whoops.


End file.
